The present invention generally relates to machine translation and more particularly, to a translating apparatus which enables division and linking of sentences through easy operations.
Conventionally, in translating apparatuses, it has been usually so arranged that one complete sentence is fed into a translation processing buffer such that the sentence fed into the translation processing buffer is translated. Thus, in the case where two or more sentences exist in the translation processing buffer or only a portion of a sentence, i.e. an incomplete sentence exists in the translation processing buffer, satisfactory translation of the sentences and the incomplete sentence cannot be performed. In order to obtain a translation of a desired sentence from the input sentences in the former case, it is necessary to delete the excessive sentences and then, perform translation of the desired sentence again. Meanwhile, in the latter case, it is necessary to add an omitted portion to the incomplete sentence into one complete sentence and then, perform translation of the sentence again. Hence, the known machine translating apparatuses have such a drawback that extremely troublesome operations including recovery of the translated input sentence and the input sentences following the translated input sentence, such as further input of the deleted sentences and deletion of the excessive character-string should be performed.
Meanwhile, in the known translating apparatuses in which one sentence is translated as a unit of translation, when a text inputted automatically by an alphanumeric recognition system such as an optical character reader (OCR) or sentences called from another document file are translated, such phenomena as failure of entry of the sentences into translation, erroneous analysis and divided translation due to failure of analysis take place since a plurality of the sentences are arranged continuously without line feed.
Furthermore, in the known translating apparatuses, in order to execute translation and edit the translated sentences, a word processor function of the translating apparatuses is utilized or word processors are exclusively used therefor. However, such cases frequently occur in which the translated sentences can be changed into better ones merely by displacing the phrases without the need for utilizing the word processor function or the word processors exclusively therefor.